


last of the gang to bleed out

by glitchesaintshit



Category: Rammstein
Genre: Alternate Universe - Keine Lust, Disabled Character, Domestic, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, if u can't figure out what's happening w yr body throw metaphors at it until yr healed, it's about [clenches fist] the understanding.................., sprinkle of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:48:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28859106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitchesaintshit/pseuds/glitchesaintshit
Summary: And so to Till he jokes, “Ineedto get a goddamn wheelchair,” but the laughter is only halfway. Each time he has to summit the stairs to his apartment is proof to himself of the truth.Next to him, Till’s eyes say “don’t say that” for half a second like everyone else’s mouth says out loud when he’s been fed up enough to bring that curse into the world. But it’s only a curse because people say it is.or, old friends meeting each other where others don’t go.or, the pre-Keine Lust friends-to-lovers domestic fluff you didn't ask for.
Relationships: Till Lindemann/Christian Lorenz | Flake
Comments: 15
Kudos: 24





	last of the gang to bleed out

**Author's Note:**

> WHAT'S UP DUDES. HELLO. I DON'T USUALLY GO HERE BUT APPARENTLY I'VE BEEN LURKING SO MUCH THAT NOW I GO HERE & IT WAS POINTLESS TO POST THIS ON ANON CUZ ANYBODY THAT'S OVER IN THE SLIPKNOT TAG TOO WOULD CALL ME OUT IN A SECOND CUZ I'M OBVIOUS SO HERE WE ARE
> 
> I keep coming back to Arrestzelle’s [A Sufficient Replacement](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24333766) because it’s so sweet in its own way, but also I’m like--what if. There was. MORE?????  
> this isn't a continuation of that or any way attached to it, it's just a super hard rec cuz i love that fic with my entire soul & feel obligated to plug it here because it's brought me so much comfort while infinitely laid up
> 
> So if anything, consider this a prelude to Keine Lust. I feel like in fic that deals with disability we never see the onset or deterioration, which includes OK days and days that you get through because they’re important and then just suffer for after and plenty of days doubting if you’re REALLY disabled even though you can’t walk up the block without falling tf over, and I wanted to show that. Because I feel like for a lot of people--all the disabled people I know personally anyway--it is that long slow erosion of yourself & not zero to wheelchair in sixty seconds, y’know? I just wanted to see something that hewed a little closer to my own experience, as someone in the stubborn-workaholic-rendered-bedridden phase of their condition.
> 
> Anyway, this is pure self-indulgence. I want to apologize for my wordcount but ❤ no
> 
> sorry if bodies gross you out, there's a lot of bodies in this
> 
> title is a wrong answer from a my chemical romance uquiz that i've been sitting on mentally for use in Something since 2016  
> glad i used it up on this

It's a bad knees thing. 

It's interesting, that that's how it starts, because Till's knees have been bad since they met. Since Till was young, and fit, and unstoppable. Till's knees have always been bad, Flake has always needed glasses, and that was the end of it. Hardly anything worth mentioning.

It starts with a warmth. A feeling of heaviness. Which--that too is interesting, since _heaviness_ is how Till would define his current Top Ten Problems & heaviness is something Flake never knew til it settled in his knees, this warm, heavy---- _something_. Tingling, sometimes. Numbness. And that's interesting because the intuition part of his brain equates _heaviness_ with _solidity_. Stability. Like concrete berms, dams, the Wall. The pillars that hold up parking structures. Brutalist architecture, all those facts about how _x building weighs one trillion pounds_ , being made of solid concrete. Things that don't fail, or shouldn't fail, and it's interesting because there's the warmth and there's heaviness and it's _weakness_.

Buildings don't fall down, but his knees shear sideways when he walks. For months every step feels like it's knocking his hips out of their sockets, and if the ground is the slightest bit _wrong_ (and who knows what _wrong_ is, because he certainly doesn't. It's criteria that changes on a whim, day to day, hour to hour; neither rhymes nor reasons for any of it) when he puts his foot down his knee isn't there to catch him.

He gets braces, velcro & clanking metal that gets him pulled aside at airports. When they enter the United States, his bags are always held for screening at TSA. He's the one pulled aside for additional security, taken in little locked rooms & had his underwear looked in. 

He tries to be a good sport about it because truly, _classic Flake_. Just his luck. The short straw in life.

Till starts asking for seatbelt extenders. The both of them are chewing pain pills, their knees flaring up with the change in pressure.

It starts with the heaviness that means weakness & then it eats through every joint in his body. Ankles, hips, vertebrae, wrists. Everything clicks when he shuffles around, couch to bed to kitchen to bathroom. Wearing soft sandals around the house because the parquet hurts his feet, makes his bones feel like they're grinding together. Stabbing shooting pain. He feels like a skeleton covered in skin--fragile, every bump and nick a catastrophe that puts him in bed for days. Even his walks to the corner store that used to be nightly--sometimes twice a day, one of the few simple pleasures he takes untold joy from--become a rare treat he has to physically prepare for, a grimace on two legs. Anymore it's just not worth the trouble. 

He doesn't know how he can feel so hollow & be so heavy at the same time.

A medic drains fluid out of his knees with a syringe so massive he almost faints, and the pain that night is different. Heavy but sharp. Raw in places. Like a tattoo or hamburger swaddled in cotton. 

If nothing else, it's interesting. A switch up from the usual.

He's on a lot of pain pills. He still feels everything. 

Backstage, Till has oxygen tanks at the ready.

Flake thinks complaining is an art--he's studied it; read books on it. He knew he always had a talent for it, then he discovered the _academic study_ of complaining which only enabled him to hone his craft further, until the edges are razor sharp.

The thing about complaining--you can't overdo it, because then it loses its potency. There are ways to spin complaints about nothing so they entertain, and those complaints don't count. But they're not truly _satisfying_ either, for the same reason. Like eating a protein bar instead of having a real lunch. Something's _missing_ , but it's good enough. The hunger is abated albeit not sated. You'll make it to your flight on time. The hollowness is a problem for your future self to deal with later, on steadier ground, once the emergency has passed.

So he hides the truth in half-jokes and knife-edged quips and wonders how he could feel so heavy & so fragile at the same time, because laying in bed makes him feel scraped-out & see-through like he’s got wasting disease but walking to the corner store for a cup of coffee and a pastry treat makes his joints swell up like the Elephant Man & exiles him back to bed for days. 

It’s a lonely time. He doesn’t disappear on purpose. He just...fades. His friends all have their own lives & their own worries & enjoy their time off taking care of their families and doing their hobbies while he retreats to the bubble of his bachelor apartment. Orders groceries delivered & presses _send to voicemail_ when his children call, not because he doesn’t want to talk, but he’s just too tired. He’s too tired. 

His texts fill up with sporadic “ _Bist du am leben?_ ”s that he always answers promptly because yes, _yes_ , he still is and doesn’t want people to worry. Things are just hard right now. And that’s what he says, and then they all fuck off for another three weeks. 

He reads a lot. Listens to records. Passes in and out of consciousness without realizing, dropping into sleep like walking through a spiderweb. Does research on the internet. Retains none of it. Stays up far too late after sleeping all day then goes to bed and sleeps some more and doesn't make it out of bed before 1400. 

All the doctors are either thirty years his junior or forty his senior. Infants cocky & fresh out of medical school who order him for more tests that come back inconclusive and put him in bed for days after, having clanked and shuffled his way around a medical complex all day in the cold. But it’s something to do. The old ones are somehow worse, because they’ve seen it all. They think they know him. They tell him to exercise more, get different insoles. His brain overloads in the middle of the shopping center on his quest for said insoles and he sits in his car for an hour feeling hopeless and small. Too overwhelmed to drive home. Knowing he’ll have to drag his carcass up the stairs to his third-floor walkup and wondering if maybe he could just die here instead, in the shopping center parking lot. It’s not how he wanted to go, but it might be preferable to the embarrassment of slipping down the stairs again. 

He rests his forehead against the steering wheel. Tears would be warranted but he can’t muster them. It’s just nothing. He’s nothing. A pervasive emptiness, weighed down by the water in his bad knees. 

He’s too articulate about his pain. Too descriptive of his symptoms. Spirits too good. Bedside manner. He thinks it’s helpful--surely the more information he provides on his condition, the better they can troubleshoot what’s wrong, correct?--but it comes across as chasing. Hypochondriacal. Kindergarten or geriatric, doctors look at him--height, weight, age, occupation; inability to meet their eyes direct, the way he fidgets with the edge of his sleeve--and see someone who’s made it all up to get his hands on drugs. As if he’s a particularly persistent junkie too stupid to score in the music biz. _As if_. 

The bottle of pills he rations for particularly rough days--taking one when he knows he has no choice but to be on his feet for hours & making do in the aftermath with the over-the-counter stuff--has Till’s name on it. Because Till’s a big man all around. Big voice, big laugh, big _presence_ when he feels the need to turn it on. Stability he can fake. 

People take him seriously. He can joke and be polite and friendly with medical staff and still walk out with painkillers. Follow-ups. Referrals. Names of specialists.

Flake just looks at them wrong from the start and fades into the wallpaper.

Till’s overprescribed. He shares as much as he can. 

Flake drives him to his appointments sometimes so he doesn’t have to go alone. 

It’s another hard winter. The band’s on a break and the way the cold seeps into his bones & makes him ache from the inside out is endlessly tiring. Things he doesn’t have patience left for. It’s interesting that his temper feels shorter by the day without reason--it’s not like he’s missing some exciting social event by achieving symbiosis with his couch on account of his achy bones, so _why?_ He doesn’t understand it. His brain feels cloudy on the best of days anymore--the answer remains somewhere out of reach, shrouded by exhaustion, drowned by the shooting pain in his leg.

The heat in his car is always slow to start; his nose running when he glides up along the kerb to pick Till up at the doors. He’s all swaddled up on the sidewalk. Breath coming out in little clouds, jamming his hands into his armpits while he waits since his gloves are on the bench seat between them, forgotten, and he drops into the front seat with a series of senior citizen creaks and grunts. Shuffles closer to Flake to slam the door shut behind him. 

“If you took a piss in this it would freeze before it hit the ground,” he says as he pulls his gloves on, and Flake snorts a laugh. His mouth twists into a crooked smile, and Till says “ _thank you for driving me_ ,” all solemn and gruff and gentle as is his way. 

His lips are soft against Flake’s cheek. When he turns his head out of something like curiosity they’re warm on his mouth too. He sniffles into the kiss because his nose is running. 

It’s not like they haven’t kissed before but it’s different today somehow. Maybe the weather. He feels all hot around the collar, his hair sticking to the sides of his neck in that dirty sledding-hill way under his warm winter hat; his wrists sweating inside his own gloves. He can feel Till’s eyes on him, watching him quietly. Patiently. Whisper of a smile on his face. He reaches out to fiddle with the radio, settling on a station before trying to put the car in gear again with an angry noise which makes him jump and Till laugh. Till pats his leg and away they go. 

It’s different but normal. His upper lip is wet in the cold & he can’t tell if it’s from snot or Till’s saliva but doesn’t want the embarrassment of trying to figure it out. But he doesn’t want to embarrass himself with his nose dripping again either so just he sniffles some more and digs in his pocket for a crumpled napkin at the first stoplight. 

“ _It’s cold, eh?_ ” he says, because what else is there to say, and Till starts off on a tale about ice-swimming as they pull out onto the highway. It makes him feel warm. Eventually the heat catches up.

He feels so cocky after that he walks to the corner store _and_ the bookstore half a district down while there’s still daylight left, damn the cold. Eats a late lunch by himself at the cafe he likes and sweats through his warm winter hat he doesn’t want to take off for fear of exposing the entire public to his disheveled state. The walk back takes almost three times as long as the walk there and by the time he gets home he's half-frozen and barely upright. He takes a long shower to defrost; scrub off the feeling of winter-sweat and soothe the pains that are already making themselves known in force--imps wreaking havoc on his back, hips, knees, ankles. The balls of his feet feel like they’re disintegrating. Half nerves, half dampness, half overuse. Pavement fatigue. 

It lays him out for two days afterward but it’s worth it. He has new books and a new record that came in the mail and a fancy new coffee when his groceries get delivered, and he can pretend that this is a blizzard & he’s snowed in. Relaxing, not recovering.

A flicker of normal.

He pretends he's snowed in but he calls Till anyway & he always shows up, bringing a treat or a book or some other piece of the outside world. Once it's flowers, and even though they obviously came from the supermarket where he stopped to pick up some milk--because Flake offhandedly mentioned being out, struggling to pry himself from the couch for long enough to make it to the corner store but too stubborn to get a whole grocery order when all he _needed_ was the milk--it's still sweet in a way that pulls something inside him. Till's always bringing home misfit toys (feeding strays, picking up wobbly furniture from the side of the road to fix & return to the kerb like new, rescuing plants that're wilting to the concrete outside some greengrocer's front door) and the bouquet's no exception--it has a sticker proclaiming it's a last chance, quick sale. Would be in a dumpster in five hours getting vegetable trimmings and leaking bags of mystery meat thrown on top of it, had Till not come along. But he trims back the greenery that's ended up a little battered, clips off one broken carnation, and by the time he's done fluffing it out into a vase Flake's reasonably sure came with the apartment because he's never seen it in his life--it looks like something new, fresh, beautiful. 

" _There,_ " he says, plunking the vase down at the miniature table by the window where Flake drinks coffee in the morning and all hours & rests when he's trying to cook anything more involved than canned soup, because anything more is just too much standing. "Now it looks like a woman lives here."

"Oh thank you, since we both know it's a _lack of feminine touch_ that's my problem," Flake deadpans. 

The way Till laughs makes him feel like the flowers are the misfit toy, Till's project. Not him. Not either of them. No matter how battered their bodies may be.

"You need to get a different apartment, I have had it with these goddamn stairs," Till huffs weeks later, when they're both dragging themselves up the final stairs to Flake's apartment one step at a time after a walk to the bookstore. The idea smacked of hubris and in the back of their heads they knew they shouldn't but they were unable to resist despite themselves. It's the first day where the sun is enough to cut the snow and they feel like schoolboys. A special occasion. The first day that feels as if he might make it out of winter alive. He called Till to talk because the air indoors was too still and outdoors glistened with promise, and Till could barely hold back his " _I'll be right over_ ". 

When he burst into Flake's apartment, he was shining like the sun, and it lifted his heart. He felt giddiness. True joy.

But now his feet burn, every step punctuated with heel-toe stabbing pain and the unexpected wobble of his knees he's been gritting his teeth through for the last two kilometers. His shins feel like the bones have splintered and are cutting him up from the inside. Pushing it down--deep breathing; last-ditch rests smiled through like he's just taking time to stop and smell the roses--people-watch, overcome with manic desire to make up stories about strangers' lives and _not at all_ the need to sit down for five minutes to gather enough strength to push on. Focusing on the sky, the trees, passing cars, their reflections in windows as they pass, anything but the pain to maintain his hold on the concept of _a good day--whatever that is!--_ so the first day where it feels like he might survive winter and rattled his way to the bookshop with Till shining like the sun beside him doesn't end up tainted in memory with the ghost of bad knees.

It worked well, mostly, even if his feet felt like they were full of hot sand, and cold sand, and beestings, and ice, and static, and nothingness. The numbness is always more frightening than any amount of normal pain, because it never comes alone. He's numb but still in pain, shouldn't that be impossible?

But it did work. The breathing and ignoring and the times they slowed to a crawl like he was swimming uphill through crystallized honey with Till keeping pace because Till gives a shit. Somehow.

And it was fine and good until they reached the lobby, but then it was as though his body could magnetically sense _home_ and picked the building's cluttered lobby--mailboxes, bicycles, newspapers, a child's push-trike, some big-leafed potted plants that definitely do not receive enough sunlight but somehow remain green--to decide to give up. Three flights of stairs too early.

It's more six half-flights, really. Wide landings between. The steps themselves are wide too--deep; deep enough for even him to get a full foot on the tread with room to spare--but the rise isn't enough. Or his legs are too long. Perhaps both. Either way, the whole configuration always throws his body to fits, and the railing is only on one side. Not that he could reach both sides--the _whole staircase_ is wide, Christ in heaven, the longer he shuffles through life the more he hates all the opulent architectural quirks that drew him to this place to begin with, up to and _including_ that there's nowhere to place a bag while one checks the mail because the shelf that ran under the mailboxes once upon a time is long-gone & now just a scar that mocks him when his hands are full & he’s guiltily eyeing the neighbors' bikes with intent to use them as a makeshift valet--but it would be nice to go up the stairs side-by-side instead of Till lingering a step behind. Like they're the world's shittiest Everest expedition or he's a fall hazard. 

His hand sweats on the brass rail. Till's heat is right behind him when he steps up onto his own unit’s landing. Finally, by some typical miracle. 

His left knee wobbles threateningly.

And so to Till he jokes, “I _need_ to get a goddamn wheelchair,” but the laughter is only halfway. Each time he has to summit the stairs to his apartment is proof to himself of the truth.

Next to him, Till’s eyes say “ _don’t say that_ ” for half a second like everyone else’s mouth says out loud when he’s been fed up enough to bring that curse into the world. But it’s only a curse because people say it is. To him it feels like a blessing. A wish, a dream. He wants his world back. He wants to make idle chat with the student working at the corner store once or sometimes twice a day; he wants to feel the sun, the air, the _people_. The hum of life without having to directly participate. He wants to wander again-- _remember how he used to just wander?_ \--and soak up the world where it lies. Think his thoughts, dream his words, drink in the world’s melodies. He wants all of that without pain. Simple joy without consequence. He wants the road to rise to meet him, and not in the way he's become too familiar with where the ankle flips and the knee buckles and he bloodies his fragile palms on the pavement. 

Every time he lays in bed in misery because his legs are shooting cramped-up numb again he distracts himself by thinking of the pyrotechnics they could rig up, dreaming of ramps & sparks & angle grinders. New challenges to take on. It's more hallucination than thinking. Then he's unconscious. He wakes up when it's dark out. Sits at his little table to rest if he has to prepare a meal more difficult than canned soup, but mostly just drinks increasingly bitter coffee & tries to cut through the fog. Hours pass. The world stays small and his face reflects back in the black mirror of the window, looking out at nothing. 

Crowded too-close at his door, for a spare heartbeat, Till’s eyes say “ _don’t say that_ ” but then his mouth says, “ _that would be good, wouldn’t it?_ ” and his eyes are so soft & watery & warm. Like his steadying hand on Flake’s elbow. His lips press a thin smile. It hangs in the air with the smells from the neighbors’ cooking while he unlocks the door & then Till’s breezing inside, setting down bags in the tired little kitchen like he owns the place and Flake’s the one who’s a guest in his own home.

“Do you want a coffee?”

Even if the answer is _not right now_ , Till cares for him. He lets himself be cared for. It feels decadent like snapping the first square off a new chocolate bar--going to take a shower and change into house clothes, emerging to a record spinning & a pot of coffee he can have a small cup of and not feel guilty brewing a whole carafe just to indulge that one bit. Till filling up his kitchen with life & smells & _warmth_ , heat of the stove already making the windows fog around the edges. He forces himself to indulge the relaxation when Till chases him out of the kitchen and sits at his little table to sip coffee until Till banishes him from there too; shoos him to the living room and tells him he’s being a nuisance when what he really means is _I’m taking care of you_ , but calling him a nuisance is less patronizing. He prefers it.

Being cared for-- _truly_ , not the perfunctory way doctors who act as if being summoned to diagnose his problems is irritating & they wish to leave as quickly as possible because anything is more important than this awkward slip of a man and his problems do--is a foreign concept. It jabs him in the wrong places and sticks in his throat. He knows people care _for_ him, but that’s different than _caring_ for him. The latter’s something of a stranger. The closest he gets anymore is if the person packing his groceries for delivery doesn’t put the eggs on the bottom or flatten the bread between canned tomatoes. Caring for others comes easier. It might be the communism. Even when his nerves are shot to their limit, he still wants to stand at the stove with Till and stir the fucking soup.

He clenches his teeth & forces himself to relax, lets exhaustion slip over him like a veil. His sweatpants are soft & the blanket from the back of the sofa is the perfect weight. His coffee is small, his book within reach, the record plays softly and when side A ends Till wanders in to flip it with a tea towel draped over his shoulder, paying Flake no mind at all. 

He dozes off for a moment but it doesn’t matter because he wakes up before he manages to dump the bottom of the very small coffee he’s still holding into his lap and once it’s on the end table he can drift to his heart’s content; let consciousness slide like silk through his fingers. It doesn’t make him feel weak but instead safe and cozy. The neighbors are blissfully quiet and as the sky turns pink outside & the last spun-gold rays of sunlight cut past the curtains to warm the spines of his bookshelf they really could be anywhere, Till and him. Somewhere far away. A treehouse or a lighthouse; a weatherbeaten shack at the edge of a cliff. It doesn’t matter. He feels comforted; his bones heavy, the blanket the perfect weight. 

That night sated after dinner & drinks they watch a movie together on the sofa. Till’s arm is heavy around his shoulders & despite the grounding feeling of it he feels himself drifting off again and moves just a little bit closer out of instinct. He’s not even looking at the television anymore; his face tucked into the soft spot in Till’s shoulder. It could be loosely defined as cuddling, by anyone with functional eyes, but mostly it’s just a slow melt of their bodies together. The shuffling of limbs as he loses the fight against gravity while trying to steer around Till’s bulk. 

Eventually Till suggests they move the whole party to bed where they can stretch out better--for logistical purposes, nothing improprietous here--and if there’s a wink in his voice Flake doesn’t catch it. 

“You know I don’t have a television in there,” he says, because he doesn’t, and Till does know, because a television in the bedroom is a fucking eyesore & one of the most offensive parts of staying in hotels (about which he bitches incessantly) so he has no desire to bring that into his home.

But Till says, “ _You have a computer, no?_ ” and that’s settled, even if it were anyone else he’d flat-out deny he’s ever owned a computer in his life while resting his heels on the Macbook on the coffee table. 

He starts a new film on his laptop on the dresser since neither of them were particularly occupied with the last, it was just something to do, and the new one is much the same. They lay there watching in silence, chaste & fully clothed inside the blankets; Flake scraped into Till’s arms, head pillowed on the softness of his chest. Feeling his heartbeat, the deep gentle rise of his breathing. They lay there & Till buries his nose in his clean hair, gently strokes along the hunch of his shoulder. They lay there, and Flake pulls him closer. Their legs tangle. He’s so warm through his sweater. 

Flake’s run out of reasons to complain. 

It’s temporary like all other feelings, because the night ends--there’s no telling whether Till leaves or he dozes off first, or somehow both at the same time, the sequence of events woven through each other in tapestry. He could find reason to complain--the loss of the shared warmth, the disruption of tentative sleep, _why not leave sooner if you were not going to stay?_ \--but he doesn’t. He wakes up the next morning in the middle of the bed with his glasses on the wrong night table, and they don’t speak for a few days because after that much excitement in one day his body’s had enough. 

It’s the usual curse of retained fluid. Swelling & nerve pain & disappointment accompanied by a fog in his head that feels so thick he can’t see past the curtains anymore, can’t do much more than lie on the couch watching himself liquify. Sitting on the shower floor three times a day, letting scalding water beat down on his knees. Never feeling warm. 

But Till checks in. He appears one day by magic with apple pastries & the book he’s working through, and drags him to the park five blocks away to sit on a bench and read and smoke like old men with corner store coffees & their swollen knees & the bag from the bakery warm crinkling between them. Till throws an occasional bite to the ducks & winks at all the pretty girls. He’s in good spirits. And even if his own mind is distant & fogged-over, Flake’s trying. 

Occasionally Till nudges his foot with his own. If it were more often he’d have reason to complain but it’s not--the perfect interval, to just remind Flake of his presence and experience togetherness. Eventually they wind up pressed against each other from hip to ankle, his head rested on Till’s shoulder at the expense of his own neck, and when Till’s arm sneaks around his shoulder he knows it’s time to go home because they’ve both overextended themselves again. It’s fine. The pastries are gone & the sun can’t hold back the cold forever. Home would be nice. 

So they go, together.

Whenever he says, “ _None of this is fun_ ” on outings like this because he can feel his entire body dragging, weighed down with pain like wet bags of sand, Till says “ _I’ll carry you._ ”

And every time he says, “ _I’m not a baby_ ” because he’s not, he slipped from the womb serious & ready to retire--if anything he qualifies as a senior citizen, for how his joints are giving out too soon--and Till says, 

“ _I know, I was kidding. I’m not carrying your fat ass anywhere. Let’s go,_ ” and slows his steps to take his hand. 

It’s not worth comment how Till moves faster than him anymore, when two or three years ago Flake was the one zipping around like a marabou stork on methylphenidate pills. Absolutely unstoppable amount of walking. If he couldn’t get out he’d get restless and agitated then cave in and start doing laps in parking lots & hallways. It was borderline neurotic & always drove everyone crazy, secretly, if they’d never say it to his face. But that’s all in the past. He’s learning to appreciate the solidity of a good handrail, these days. The warmth of Till’s hand. It’s sweaty, but solid. 

Maybe he needs that. Maybe he’ll try until it becomes unremarkable and it’s not something he thinks of anymore at all, just a given. A steadfast fixture of the landscape. 

These days, it feels good to feel normal.

They kiss lazily in the warmth in the dark, curled around each other under the blankets in his bed. The suffocating weight of the pile of quilts atop Till’s bed on the occasions he makes it out there. It’s comforting in a _peine forte et dure_ way, as if his secrets are safe under the load--the soft sighs usually trapped in his throat, given room to blossom by restriction. The catch of their skin tacky with sweat that means spring will one day come. Till’s hands dipping insistent at the insides of his thighs, curling around his waist, feeling along his ribs. 

“ _You’re handsome,_ ” he murmurs against the dip of his throat; stroking hair back from his face. Fingertips making contact with a piece of skin at his temple usually blocked by the arm of his glasses & it feels more intimate than every time he’s had his cock in his mouth, which is interesting. Frightening. Exciting.

“ _Stop,_ ” he says, and Till shuts up to kiss him again. 

Till eats ass like he was born for it.

" _Let me take care of you,_ " he says. It's always, " _let me take care of you._ "

It feels so vulnerable but he can’t stop himself crumbling to the pressure. Till has a convincing voice, low and sweet; a natural rhythm that could drive even the most cold-hearted sailors to run upon the rocks. He lets him make dinner for the both of them and run a load of laundry & stuffs down the shame of being cared for, because he knows it makes Till happy. 

He’s a natural provider as much as Flake is stubborn. If there were a way for those traits to lock in battle, it would be an epic on the scale of the Greek myths. They might blow up the sun.

As it is, he stumbles out the back end of winter with Till trailing behind him, sweeping the fragments of his life into a dustpan to fix and put back at the kerb later wearing a sign that says “ _free to a good home_.” But it’s nice, if he’d never admit it. He enjoys the creature comforts mostly--clean clothes, someone to help change the sheets so it doesn’t take him two hours with many breaks to do it alone, home-cooked meals & treats & booze & books & fresh air--but also to be cared for. Held, reassured, thought-of. Someone to convalesce with; share ideas & coffee & touch & talk to or not talk at all, to sit on the miniscule balcony & read the paper with. Someone else to care for, because he feels like a failure at taking care of himself but caring outwards--worry for someone else’s aches and pains, mentally cataloguing their schedule simply for the sake of _knowing_ , checking up to be sure they’re keeping in comfort--is something he’s good at. The fucking is a bonus. 

He’d never admit the way his heart surges when the phone rings; doubly so if it’s Till’s name on the caller ID. He doesn’t need to--neither of them do.

It’s been this way since they became fast friends; the same unspoken care & depth of compassion. They just express it differently these days, in lingered kisses and palms pressed together; the trading of heartbeats under warm skin. 

They don’t have the _what is--?_ conversation that’s ruined plenty of perfectly good things Flake’s had in his life, they share cigarettes on the miniature balcony and talk about the movements of neighborhood cats & poetry. Sometimes they wash each others’ dishes.

The fucking is a bonus.

And the snow melts, the tulips bloom. He runs through doctor after doctor, appointment after appointment, each time getting no closer to the cause but finally-- _finally_ , after _how long_ spent wasting away to a shadow of the independent man he used to be--his new orthopedic specialist prescribes him a wheelchair in lieu of pharmaceutical pain management. He’ll remember to be miffed about the refusal to prescribe painkillers based on whatever inherent bias the medical establishment has against him when they’re back in the car & his hands stop shaking on the wheel but for now he bursts out the front doors of the office, trying not to look too healthy where the receptionists can see but practically sprinting to Till, who’s sitting dark & pensive on the bench across the parking lot where Flake left him. (Reading; soaking up sunshine & fresh air with the patience of a saint.) He has a petal from the crabapple trees stuck in his hair. Can’t hide his shy smile as Flake bounds over with energy he hasn’t had in eternities. 

“They gave you the good stuff, eh?”

“ _Better._ ”

Later, after the laughter of disbelief’s worn off & his hands stop shaking, they cook dinner side-by-side in Till’s expansive kitchen, which means Till cooks and Flake eats olives from the jar with his hands & occasionally stirs a pan. They stand hip-to-hip regardless. Even if he doesn’t contribute much, Till doesn’t complain. 

“How are you going to get it home, anyway?” he asks. “The U-Bahn?” 

He doesn’t have to specify which ‘it’ he means, _it_ ’s the elephant of a dream that’s taken up residence in his own too-small third-floor apartment as he’s watched himself fade; soon to be replaced with the new dream that they all finish up talking about this now & he can become a person again & not just a series of physical inconveniences; betrayals of the flesh.

“I think it might fit in my car. Some assembly required.”

“You just got the thing and you already want to take it apart, _pssh_ ,” he scolds. It has no teeth. “My van still runs, you know. I still have that ramp we built when I was using it for moving gear, too, it’s out in the shed. We’ll take the van.” 

The way he says it isn’t a question. His own face must show apprehension, skepticism. The unspoken _please don’t_ held between them like a shield. 

"Let me _take care_ of you," Till says, pulling Flake close to his shoulder and ruining his paper-thin defenses. Kissing his forehead with a surety that could linger forever, but in the meantime luckily he has to stir the potatoes.

" _I’m not sick_ ," he insists later. Voice all small in the dark of the bedroom. 

" _I know_ ,” Till murmurs back.

They both know it to be a lie.

It’s not cancer, touch wood. It’s not wasting disease. With every thing he’s told it’s _not_ , surely that has to narrow the field of what it could _be_ , even as he shuffles from referral to referral accumulating a paper trail that never gets clearer. In his more cynical moments he takes to calling himself Brian Wilson, sarcastically, even if he knows the affliction isn’t the same. Herr Wilson had more in common with Till--tortured geniuses with tight social circles, more talent than could hope to be contained. All that ties his own comparison is piano & a codependent tether to their beds broken by brief social jaunts that leave them exhausted, but in his good moments he jokes he’s Brian Wilson. Just without the talent or vision.

He’s still without answers when he moves house in the dead of summer, having finally found a place that’s accessible. He always tells people he could be happy anywhere ( _as long as it’s in Berlin_ ) and to some degree he means it, but also the thought of living in a sanitized new-build apartment complex all sleek and modern & soulless makes him break out in hives. It’s just not _him_. He claims he’s not hung up on aesthetics but he likes old cars, and old buildings, and the same pair of boots he’s had since 1985--things with _character_. People, too. 

If anybody ever called him on it he’d deny it straight to their face, but in his heart of hearts he holds out & passes over one perfectly acceptable building after another until he finds one that makes his heart sing--a ground floor flat with real plaster walls & a small brick patio; fenced-in little patch of garden too small for even the smallest dog but fine for some rescue plants. It’s on the other side of the bookstore he likes but a little bit closer, and only two blocks to a corner store instead of the previous five, because his old apartment is five blocks from everything which was fine when he could walk thirty kilometers in a day easy but not anymore. The new place instead has a second bedroom he intends to make into a study, with big old windows that look out at the garden. All the doors are wide, the kitchen is bigger, and the landlord smoothes the step up over the threshold into a tiny ramp without complaint or accusation. It feels like a fairytale or a quiet miracle, and not even the ordeal of having to pack the old place can turn down his smile.

Till gifts him a painting that he can’t hang up until the rest of his art gets unpacked & he can assess the situation and Paul gifts him the most artistic photo of a toilet he’s ever seen, which he _can_ hang right away because naturally it was destined for the bathroom. (Paul agrees, obviously, practically tripping on himself to put it there with his own hands; giddy on his own cleverness.) Schneider’s wife sends fancy booze & take-out--which Schneider himself delivers despite looking a bit oblivious to the whole concept of house-warming without the framework of a formal party to contextualize it--and Oli gets him a broom, which is helpful because his own got lost somewhere in the process, and Richard brings nothing because he’s fucked off to America again & not having to entertain him is the best gift he could possibly be given.

After that--friends in and out for five excruciatingly long days, the movers and painters, Till having taken up residence on the other side of his bed despite insisting the very first time “ _it’s temporary_ ” and that he’d be gone by the morning, which they both know to be a lie long before he wakes up with Till folded sticky along his back and their bodies throwing enough humidity between them to qualify as a new microclimate--he considers the house adequately warmed.

Almost a week later, Till still hasn’t gone. He says he’s helping unpack but they’ve done more resting and storytelling than unpacking. They laugh & scheme & gossip about absolutely nothing & he wakes to Till removing his glasses from his face in the wake of what he thought was just going to be a little sit-down but turned into an involuntary nap.

“You fell asleep, liebe.” 

He hums, a true value neutral statement. Till kisses his lips and gently tucks a strand of hair that’s fallen from his ponytail behind his ear. Tells him it’s okay to rest. 

When he wakes up again his closet’s organized like his home’s been overtaken by elves. Till’s napping on the bed like he belongs there. As if he’s never belonged anywhere else.

If it ever comes time to count his blessings: full head of hair. Strong enough to fight his friends. Creative, driven, natural introvert adapted to spending time in the bubble of his home. A good relationship with his childrens’ mother, so all he has to do is cut checks & show up on weekends to be a good papa, so he’s not the one failing to keep them fed when his body quits and he lays on the couch like a slug for days. He’s easily amused. He can walk, it just hurts a lot. He can stand, it just hurts a lot. He doesn’t know when to quit. There’s sunshine on his patio and a corner store only two blocks down, which many days is walkable & he has wheels for the days it isn’t. He’s getting to know the rotation of students & retirees that work the counter, and they keep him abreast of neighborhood gossip simply for having a consistent face. Art on his walls, books on his shelves, records in the cabinet. Till, always there to take care of him and vice-versa.

**Author's Note:**

> come hang out: ao3userglitchesaintshit.tumblr.com


End file.
